Joshua Wilkey: Blessed are the White Trash
I grew up poor. Often, when one reads memoirs or oral histories from folks who grew up where I did — that is, in Appalachia, or in the South, or somewhere … Continue reading
Robert C. Koehler: Fire Burn, Caldron Bubble
America serves up its news in a caldron from hell, or so it sometimes seems. The fragments are all simmering in the same juice: bombs and drones and travel bans, … Continue reading
Jose Padua: In the Someday with the Sound of All the Passing Years
We only have one TV in the house, and last night Julien took a break from whatever he wanted to watch and let Maggie take control of it. What she … Continue reading
George Yancy: Is Your God Dead?
I don’t mean the God of the philosophers or the scholars, but, as Blaise Pascal said, the “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob.” With no disrespect, I … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: Of Guns And Our Crazy Neighbor
I teach in Belleville, Illinois, a suburb of St. Louis. Belleville is the home of James Hodgkinson, the man who opened fire on congressmen and staffers at a G. O. … Continue reading
Elizabeth Kirschner: Parochial Pain
Screened-in porch. In summer. Orchard darkness in a fox pelt of woods. Quiet flat as a dime, as the Midwest itself. I rock, smoke cigarettes. The bead-heads of tobacco smell … Continue reading
Jimmy Carter: Why I severed my ties to the Southern Baptist Convention
Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God. I have been a practicing Christian all my life and a … Continue reading
Alison R. Parker: Being Jewish in Trump’s America is a profoundly unsettling reality
I never believed that anti-Semitism had disappeared, or ever would. But neither did I ever expect to live with the kind of fear and torment that older generations spoke of in … Continue reading
Max S. Gordon: Bill Cosby Himself — Fame, Narcissism and Sexual Violence
There is a black woman who works security in our building. Leaving for the day a few weeks ago, I skip our morning salutation and jump right in: “Oh, chile, … Continue reading
David Michael Green: Stop Legitimizing ‘Conservatism’. It’s Not an Ideology – It’s a Goddamn Death Machine
There’s no end to the maladies that ail American politics these days. It would, indeed, be far easier and quicker to identify what’s working than to itemize the travails that … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: What to do with the Confederate War Memorial?
Recently my wife and I were in Bentonville, Arkansas. The town square is like the setting of a Sherwood Anderson novel — quaint shops, courthouse. At the center of the … Continue reading
Greg Thielen: Bumper Sticker Politics in the Age of Trump
I grew up in Arizona during a time when it was more desert than concrete, when there were a lot of dirty pickup trucks sporting gun racks, roll bars, and, … Continue reading
Daniel R. Cobb: My Advice to Women: Lie
The scourge of gender-based income inequality has been with us seemingly forever. Generally, the pay gap has narrowed over the decades; according to a Pew Research Center analysis of median … Continue reading
Daniel Burston: Civility and Academic Freedom
American Universities in the Age of Trump I’ve been teaching university-level courses – first as an adjunct, then as a full time academic – since January of 1987. In the … Continue reading
